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D.C. Second Amendment Enforcement Act Passes House, Moves to Senate

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Fairfax, VA - The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to approve the National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed “Second Amendment Enforcement Act” in an overwhelming bi-partisan vote of 266-152. The Act, passed as an amendment to H.R. 6842, will overturn the District of Columbia’s gun control restrictions that defy the recent Supreme Court ruling by continuing to limit D.C. residents’ right to self-defense.
This bill is necessary to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Following passage, Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist remarked, “From the moment the Supreme Court overturned this failed gun ban, elitist politicians have sought to undermine the Court’s decision with bogus emergency regulations that all but stop residents from exercising their Second Amendment rights. NRA wants to make sure D.C. residents are able to protect themselves and their families.”
On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”
A bi-partisan group of Congressmen introduced legislation this summer to force the D.C. Council into compliance with the Supreme Court after the council enacted ‘emergency’ gun-control restrictions on its residents after D.C.’s gun ban and self-defense ban were overturned.
The Second Amendment Enforcement Act will:
· Repeal the District’s ban on semi-automatic handguns. Semi-automatic pistols have been the most commonly purchased firearms in the United States over the last 20 years, and therefore a ban on those firearms is unconstitutional as decided by Heller; · Restore the right of self-defense by repealing the requirement that firearms be disassembled or secured with a trigger lock in the home; · Reform the current D.C. registration system that requires multiple visits to police headquarters; ballistics testing; passing a written test on D.C. gun laws; fingerprinting; and limiting registration to one handgun per 90 days. The current system is unduly burdensome and serves as a vehicle for even more onerous restrictions; and · Create a limited exemption to the federal ban on interstate handgun sales by allowing D.C. residents to purchase handguns in Virginia and Maryland. Currently there is only one licensed firearm dealer in the District, and the District government is standing in the way of additional dealers opening their doors. A 40-year old federal law prohibits residents from purchasing handguns outside of the District.
“I’d like to thank Congressmen Travis Childers, John Dingell, John Tanner, Mike Ross, Mark Souder, Bill Sali and Robin Hayes for their leadership. NRA will continue our work to bring the Second Amendment to D.C. residents, but we call on the Senate now to take up this historic legislation,” concluded Cox. “The American people should know where their elected representatives stand on this critical civil rights legislation before the November elections.”
-nra-
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen's group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime.
The Association remains the nation's leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.

Copyright 2008, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

DALEY HINTS HE MAY DROP FIGHT TO KEEP HANDGUN BAN
August 2, 2008  

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com

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NRA, HELLER, TAKE DISTRICT BACK TO COURT

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's gun ban, the District, Mayor and City Council are being sued again over the District's thinly veiled attempt to continue its restrictions on firearm ownership. D.C. residents Dick Anthony Heller and Absalom F. Jordan, Jr., in conjunction with lawyers for the NRA, filed a complaint against the District of Columbia and Mayor Adrian Fenty challenging D.C.'s Firearms Control Emergency Amendment Act of 2008.

"The District of Columbia's so-called 'emergency regulations' prohibit law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves and their loved ones in their own homes," said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. "The Mayor and City Council have proposed a list of regulations that violate the Supreme Court's decision."

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BI-PARTISAN BILL INTRODUCED TO RESTORE THE SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF D.C. RESIDENTS

This week, in a bi-partisan effort, Congressmen Travis Childers (D-Miss.), John Dingell (D-Mich.), John Tanner (D-Tenn.), Mike Ross (D-Ark.), and Mark Souder (R-Ind.), along with 47 of their colleagues, introduced the "Second Amendment Enforcement Act" (H.R. 6691 http://www.ilaalerts.org/UM/T.asp?A1.2.3494.5.2697101 ). This critical legislation overturns D.C.'s recently enacted emergency laws that continue to defy the recent Supreme Court ruling by continuing to restrict District of Columbia residents' right to self-defense. This NRA-backed bill is needed to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.

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D.C. CITY COUNCIL IGNORING SUPREME COURT RULING

Washington, D.C. City Council Ignoring Supreme Court Ruling
-- Discharge petition filed on gun ban repeal

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Monday, July 28, 2008

In open defiance of the Supreme Court's decision striking down the Washington D.C. gun control law, the City Council passed an "emergency" law that keeps in place almost all of the law that was ruled unconstitutional.

For example, though the Court ruled specifically that the city's ban on handguns violated the Second Amendment, most handguns still cannot be registered because D.C. bureaucrats classify semi-automatic pistols as "machine guns."

Even Dick Heller, who brought the case against Washington's gun ban, was rejected when he tried to register his handgun because any "bottom loading" firearm is a "machine gun" according to the D.C. police.

Similarly, while the Court found that "the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a "trigger lock" is unconstitutional, the city kept in place the "lock up your safety" law unless the resident is in immediate danger.

The D.C. Council is thus rendering the Supreme Court victory for gun rights meaningless, while leaving residents defenseless.

Congress needs to repeal the District's gun control law to ensure that the Supreme Court decision is not a hollow victory.

According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the authority and responsibility to govern the District. It can simply repeal the District's onerous gun law.

Not surprisingly, however, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has no intention of allowing the D.C. gun ban repeal legislation to come to the floor, even though it is cosponsored by more than half of the members of Congress.

To free the bill from the Speaker's death grip, Representative Mark Souder (R-IN) has filed a discharge petition to bring the bill directly to the floor. Rep. Souder needs 218 cosigners for the petition to be successful. There are currently 109 signers.

There are not many days left in this legislative session, so it is vital that the discharge petition moves quickly. Please contact your representative and urge him or her to support the repeal of the D.C. gun ban and to sign the Souder discharge petition. You can visit the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Reps. the pre-written e-mail message below.

----- Pre-written letter -----

Dear Representative,

The Washington, D.C. city council is making a mockery of the recent Supreme Court decision supporting the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Though the Court ruled the city's handgun ban unconstitutional, DC is still making it illegal to own most handguns. The Court also ruled that the District's gun lock and gun storage law violates the Constitution, but under the city's new "emergency" gun law, firearms must be kept inoperable unless there is an immediate danger to residents.

Representative Mark Souder has filed a discharge petition to bring a bill to repeal the District's gun laws to the floor for a vote.

Please stand up for the Second Amendment and sign the Souder discharge petition.

Sincerely,

FROM THE NRA:
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear First Second Amendment Case Since 1939
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Fairfax, Va. - The United States Supreme Court today announced its decision to take up District of Columbia v. Heller-a case in which plaintiffs challenge the unconstitutional gun ban in the nation's capital. The District of Columbia appealed a lower court's ruling earlier this year affirming that the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the District's bans on handguns, carrying firearms within the home, and possession of loaded or operable firearms for self-defense violate that right.

• Former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno and various former Johnson, Carter and Clinton administration Justice Department officials say that D.C.’s bans should stand because “Congress has enacted a series of statutes regulating firearms possession and use”—though, as they also point out, “gun violence continues.” They also falsely claim that the notion that the Second Amendment protects a right of a state to have a militia “is amply supported by the Second Amendment’s text, drafting history, and historical context.” In fact, there is nothing of the sort in the text or history.  Even D.C. is not claiming that the amendment protects a “state’s right”; rather, it is claiming that the amendment protects a right of a person to be armed only when serving in a militia. 
• Anti-gun criminologists James Alan Fox and David McDowell make the remarkable claims that the “The D.C. gun law is an effective mechanism for reducing handgun violence,” “the effectiveness of the D.C. gun control law demonstrates its reasonableness,” and “the D.C. gun control law effectively reduces the supply of handguns in the district.” Of course, within 15 years of the law going into effect, D.C.’s murder rate tripled and, if crime statistics are any measure, the law “reduces the supply of handguns in the district” only among law-abiding people. 
• The NAACP says, “nothing has changed in regard to the Second Amendment that would justify this Court in radically departing from its jurisprudence here.” Fair enough. In U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), the Court said the right preexisted the Constitution.  In Presser v. Illinois (1886), it said gun control cannot have the effect of disarming the citizenry.  In U.S. v. Miller (1939), it said that the militia consists of individuals “bearing arms supplied by themselves.” And in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1980), it said “the people” means the same thing in the Second Amendment that is means everywhere else in the Constitution. 
• The American Academy of Pediatrics, Children’s Defense Fund and several other groups “dedicated to … removing handguns from homes and communities across the country,” urge the Court to uphold D.C.’s gun bans “regardless of whether the Second Amendment protects the right to possess guns for private purposes,” because, they say, “handguns are more lethal than other types of firearms” and “the dangers of handguns cannot be overcome by gun safety instruction.”
• The American Public Health Association and several other public health groups espouse the ludicrous view that “public health research [a euphemism for studies paid for by anti-gun foundations, and that use disputed methodology to endorse gun control] may be relevant to assessing the constitutionality of the statutes at issue.”  
• The Brady Center and some law enforcement groups admit, “There is no question that the right protected by the Second Amendment extends to ‘the people.’” They argue, however, that “the question is how that right is defined …. Under the ‘militia purpose’ view, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to keep and bear arms to the extent the person is engaged, or seeks to be engaged, in the conduct sanctioned by the text, i.e., possessing and using arms as part of a well regulated militia.” The Court of Appeals rejected this view, and thoroughly explained why it did so. 
• The Violence Policy Center says—incorrectly and irrelevantly—that “the handgun industry has shifted production from revolvers to high-capacity semiautomatic pistols, the modern handgun is designed for superior lethality, the ammunition capacity of handguns has increased dramatically, handguns have higher caliber ammunition designed for increased lethality, [and that] handguns used today are more concealable.” 
• 18 (out of 535) Members of Congress claim that, in Heller, the Court of Appeals “reads the Second Amendment as creating an individual right,” even though, as noted above, in Cruikshank the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment protects a preexisting right. 
• Several mayors and other officials from cities, each of which they say “has developed regulatory programs to address the particular risks and threats posed by gun violence,” and which, not surprisingly, have a disproportionate share of “gun violence” in the country. They also claim that the Second Amendment limits only the federal government, forgetting the Supreme Court’s decision in Presser, that “the States cannot, even laying [the Second Amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, as so to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government.”
• Several D.C.-based activist groups say that even if the amendment protects an individual right, the Court should “accord substantial deference to the decisions of elected officials who must decide how to regulate the availability and use of weapons in the interests of public safety and according to the particular needs, concerns, and conditions of their own communities.” Of course, as is taught to every schoolchild in America, rights are supposed to be protected against those who would legislate them out of existence.